Spielberg's movie is a prime example of good entertainment, but the novel is much darker and has so much more to offer (better events prior to the main story, more believable characters, Malcolm's injury, Nedry's introduction and demise, realistic kids, Raptors turning the tables on Sattler and the others during the blackout).
The only problem is that it needs much more time than a standard movie to tell its story (e.g., the audio book is almost 14 hours long).

Spielberg's movie is a prime example of good entertainment, but the novel is much darker and has so much more to offer (better events prior to the main story, more believable characters, Malcolm's injury, Nedry's introduction and demise, realistic kids, Raptors turning the tables on Sattler and the others during the blackout).
The only problem is that it needs much more time than a standard movie to tell its story (e.g., the audio book is almost 14 hours long).

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That's pretty common, however, when adapting a books into movies. Stuff will get changed and cut out, not everything will be Jackson-ian note-for-note near page-for-page adaptation. There's quite a bit in a book that'll be cut out. (And well, books are going to take longer to read aloud than movies to view since books have to describe things with words as opposed to visuals.)

A much darker tone would be nice though, hell there's things the park had in the book that weren't alluded to in the movie (like tracking/monitoring devices around the park for ensuring the population controls.) Wong, the guy who actually developed the cloning process, had a much bigger part. A lot of good stuff in the book.

Again, the first movie is fantastic and aside from a touch bit much in the Spierlbergian family shmaltz it's a great, great movie. The scene on the road at night in the T-Rex Paddock remains one of these best action pieces of all time for me. The special effects in that movie are still very top-notch and has better early CGI in it than what's done today!

I think the third movie gets too much gruff but it does have its flaws (as pointed out by Shameful Sequels above.) The second one I go either way on, I really didn't like the San Diego stuff.

JP4... I just don't know. But I am going to be sure to see Jurassic Park in 3D when it comes to theaters this spring.

Well, huh. I wasn't paying super-close attention to this here discussion, but I did read in both IGN and the AV Club of Safety Not Guaranteed director Colin Trevorrow's selection as JP4 helmer a few weeks back, and it seems he's only ever been mentioned in one TrekBBS thread, and not this year, at that. So, for the record, in case a virus wipes out all the internet except for us, that was a thing that was announced. Anyhoo...
... Jurassic Park 3D's stereoscopy scores a so-so 25/35 over at Cinema Blend. Compare this to 23/35 for Titanic, 27/35 for Avengers, and 14/35 for GI Blah 2 among recent post-convert jobs. Unfortunately, it doesn't specifically say how good the crowning "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth" shot works, or even really mention the Rex stuff at all.